What You Need to Know About the Unified Patent Court and Unitary Patent
As the era of biologics and biosimilar litigations heats up in the United States, Europe’s Unified Patent Court (UPC) is also taking center stage with the first two biosimilar disputes filed in March and April....more
This marks the first issue of WilmerHale’s FRAND Quarterly: Navigating the Global SEP Landscape, a bulletin that will highlight developments about the licensing, litigation, and regulation of patents that are or are claimed...more
The Unified Patent Court’s (UPC) Local Division Munich has granted a preliminary injunction in favor of 10x Genomics, preventing NanoString Technologies, Inc. from selling its CosMx Spatial Molecular Imager (SMI) instruments...more
As has been widely reported in the recent weeks, the UK government is currently trying to progress negotiations on a withdrawal agreement and a framework for its future relationship with the EU. However, uncertainty remains...more
Progress is being made regarding the protection of intellectual property (“IP”) rights in a post-BREXIT scenario on both sides of the English Channel. With BREXIT fast approaching, the European Union (“EU”) and the United...more
The Intellectual Property Office of the United Kingdom (UK)—together with the Minister of State for Energy and Intellectual Property and Prime Minister May—issued a press release on Nov. 28 confirming that the country will...more
The UK will ratify the Unified Patent Court Agreement despite the Brexit vote, it was announced yesterday. It is unclear whether this marks the start of a long participation of the UK in this 40-years-in-the-making unifying...more
As we have reported previously, it had been thought that the UK’s vote on June 23, 2016 to leave the European Union would delay the commencement of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and the introduction of the unitary patent....more
On 28 November 2016, the UK Government made a surprising announcement at the meeting of the Competitiveness Council (an EU institution), stating that it intends to ratify the Unified Patent Court Agreement, marking its first...more
The EU’s Unitary Patent Convention and the associated EU patent had originally been expected to come into effect in 2017. This was, however dependent on ratification of the agreement by thirteen EU countries of which three...more
For more than 40 years, resolving European cross-border disputes about patents in one proceeding has been a dream. The solution, by way of a new European Unified Patents Court (UPC), was until the summer of 2016 within...more
The UK Government yesterday announced that its plans to ratify the Unified Patent Court Agreement (“UPCA”) will not be derailed by Brexit. The UK Minister of State for Intellectual Property, Baroness Neville Rolfe, made the...more
On June 23, 2016, British citizens voted in a referendum in favor of exiting the European Union. Termed “Brexit,” the United Kingdom’s departure effected global markets and caused the British pound to fall to its lowest level...more
Unitary patents in Europe - The European unitary patent and Unitary Patent Court (UPC) are slated to go into effect in early 2017. These monumental changes will have a significant impact on the ways patent rights are...more
New unified patent grant and patent court systems, which were to have taken effect in early 2017, will likely be stalled because of Britain’s June vote to leave the EU, commentators and member nations fear. BACKGROUND...more
Voters in the United Kingdom have voted to leave the European Union (EU). The exit of the UK from the EU (the "Brexit") could result in a delay in the implementation of the Unitary Patent (UP) and the Unified Patent Court...more
The future of the proposed European Unified Patent Court and European Unitary Patent have been jeopardized by the Brexit vote because ratification of the proposal by the United Kingdom is expressly required before the...more
The vote of the UK Electorate to leave the EU has politicians, economists, lawyers and commentators from all sectors speculating on what will happen next and over exactly what period. While it is unlikely that there will be a...more
Regardless of the June 23, 2016 vote on Brexit, all owners of European patents, and all applicants seeking patents in Europe, will have both new options, and a new set of important decisions to make. Most commentators...more